This disagreement could only be resolved through experimentation. Walter Benjamin described this experience as “reception in a state of distraction.” Some thinkers felt that they were unable to do so, and other thinkers felt that they could. One major debate in this period was whether it was possible to attend to two things at once (split attention). However as early as in 1858 Franciscus Donders used mental chronometry to study attention and it was considered a major field of intellectual inquiry by such diverse authors as Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Max Nordau. In James’ time, the method more commonly used to to study attention was introspection. History of the study of attention 1850s to 1900s Attention is the aspect of consciousness that relates to the amount of effort exerted in focusing on certain aspects of an experience, so that they become relatively vivid”. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state.” (Principles of Psychology, 1890)ĭefinition by Titchner “Attention is a state of sensory clearness with a margin and a focus. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. One of the first major psychologists, William James, defined attention as follows: As such it is a gateway to the rest of cognition. Of the many cognitive processes associated with the human mind (decision-making, memory, emotion, etc), attention is considered the most concrete because it is tied so closely to perception. Sometimes attention shifts to matters unrelated to the external environment, a phenomenon referred to as mind-wandering or “spontaneous thought”.Īttention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It is a process of preferentially responding to a stimulus or a range of stimuli.Īttention can also be split, as when a person drives a car and talks on a cell phone at the same time. It is focusing the consciousness on a stimulus. In other words attention is the first step in the observation. Examples include listening carefully to what someone is saying while ignoring other conversations in the room. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things.
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